Bibliography of Polynesian Botany

By E. D. MERRILL

INTRODUCTION

In undertaking botanical work in any particular geographic area, especially one for which no general flora has been published, an essential preliminary is the preparation of a catalog of the species accredited to that region by various authors. This usually involves the critical examination of an enormous amount of botanical literature.

On beginning botanical work in the Philippines in 1902, I began, for convenience, a card catalog of references to the Philippine flora, which was amplified from year to year until approximately all the published references to the individual species of the Philippine flora had been compiled. This card catalog, together with the botanical material in the extensive collections of Philippine plants available at the Bureau of Science, formed the basis of my enumeration of Philippine flowering plants.1

Work begun about 1912 on a similar card catalog covering the flora of Borneo, resulted in a publication issued in 1921.2

In March, 1921, I began work on a card catalog covering the flora of Polynesia. This work is as yet incomplete, yet an enormous mass of data has been compiled which may eventually form the basis of an enumeration of Polynesian plants. The catalog covers all groups of plants, so far as the literature has been available to me. About 20,000 cards have been prepared; on each are recorded references to literature, the synonymy where given, the collectors, the collectors' numbers, geographic distribution if given, and the local names. The original copy is retained by me and a duplicate is at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

In connection with the preparation of this series of indices to the floras of the Philippines, Borneo, and Polynesia, bibliographic data were also compiled in card-index form; for while it is a simple matter to become

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1 Merrill, E. D., An enumeration of Philippine flowering plants, vol. 1, 1922-24, pp. 1-240+; vol. 2, 1923, pp. 1-530; vol. 3, 1923, pp. 1-628; vol. 4, 1924 (in press). Volume IV includes bibiliographic data for the Philippine flora.

'Merrill, E. D., A bibliographic enumeration of Bornean plants: Journ. Straits Br. Roy. Asiatic Soc., Special Number, 627 pp. 1921.

acquainted with the general works, essential publications on local floras, and monographs of families, it is very difficult to acquire proper working knowledge of the vast amount of material published in periodical literature and in the transactions of various societies. At the outset the author is obliged to examine hundreds of these publications in order to determine whether papers relating to the area in which he is particularly interested have been included.

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My two publications of bibliographic data on the flora of Borneo include a total of 556 titles. The bibliography of Philippine botany contains over 1,600 entries. One reason for the difference in numbers in the two lists is that publication on the Philippine flora began as early as 1601, while with only one or two exceptions references to Borneo do not appear in botanical literature previous to the year 1839, and very few before 1850. Again, the Philippine flora has been much more extensively and intensively studied than has that of Borneo.

Polynesia, as delimited for the purpose of preparing an index to its flora and for the present bibliography, includes all the islands in the Pacific Ocean lying between the Tropic of Cancer (including Hawaii) and latitude approximately 30 degrees south. The Marquesas, Pitcairn, Easter, Kermadec, Lord Howe, Norfolk, New Caledonia, Marianas, Caroline, and Pelew groups have been included. The groups of islands contiguous to New Guinea, such as the Louisiades, Solomon Islands, New Ireland, New Mecklenburg, the Bismarck Archipelago, and those near the American continent, such as the Galapagos Islands, and Juan Fernandez have been excluded. This is approximately the Polynesian Subregion of the Australian Region as defined by Bartholomew, Clarke, and Grimshaw. For botanical purposes it is believed that, as New Caledonia presents such a sharply defined and characteristic flora, it would be best to exclude this island, together with the Kermadec group, Lord Howe, and Norfolk Islands, from consideration as truly Polynesian, and to this list might well be added the New Hebrides and Loyalty Islands.

In preparing this list of botanical works relating to Polynesia, I have been confronted with the same problems as when preparing the bibliographic data for Borneo and the Philippines-determining what to include and what to exclude. In general only those papers have been included which contain direct references to Polynesia, either those in which new

*Merrill, E. D., A contribution to the bibliography of the botany of Borneo: Sarawak Mus. Journ., vol. 2, pp. 99-136, 1915.

* Bartholomew, J. G., Clarke, W. E., and Grimshaw, P. H., Atlas of Zoogeography, p. 8, pl. 1, 1911.

Polynesian forms are described or those in which previously described species are credited to Polynesia, or both. Thus, certain fundamental works, essential to the student of the Polynesian flora as they contain original descriptions of species which extend to Polynesia, have not been included for the reason that they contain no direct references to Polynesia. A considerable number of general works on the floras of tropical Asia, Malaysia, and Australia are not included, such as those of Robert Brown, Bentham, Miquel, Blume, Burman, Loureiro, Roxburgh, Wallich, Griffith, Thunberg, Walker, and Wight, among post-Linnean authors; and such pre-Linnean authors as Rheede, Hermann, Burman, and Rumphius. Likewise, no account has been taken of such modern floras as those of Hooker, Lecomte, King, Gamble, Ridley, Koorders, Bentham, and Bailey, covering various parts of tropical Asia, Malaysia, and Australia.

For special information regarding the bibliography of botany in general, the student is referred to such standard works as Pritzel's Thesaurus Literaturae Botanicae, Jackson's Guide to the Literature of Botany, Rehder's Bradley Bibliography, Just's Botanischer Jahresbericht, the Botanisches Centralblatt, the International Index to Scientific Literature, and Botanical Abstracts. These works are fundamental and must be consulted to a greater or less degree by all working botanists concerned with the investigation of the flora of Polynesia. It has, however, been necessary to make some arbitrary distinction in order to keep the present paper within reasonable limits. It is fully realized that many of the general works that do not apply specifically to Polynesia are of greater value and more importance than are many of the titles having Polynesian references that have been admitted in this bibliography.

The present bibliography is by no means complete, but it lists most of the important publications on Polynesian botany and a fairly high percentage of the less important papers containing references to Polynesia. It is limited by the botanical literature available to me in Manila and at the University of California, and by the time it was possible to spend in critical examination of the literature. The botanical library in Manila is not an old one, and although, generally speaking, it is an excellent working unit for the student concerned with the study of the floras of tropical Asia, Malaysia, Australia, and Polynesia, it is, of course, incomplete and lacks especially certain sets of botanical periodicals, some volumes of which undoubtedly contain papers on the Polynesian flora or in which Polynesian species are mentioned or discussed. Since my appointment at the University of California early in 1924, I have taken